Red bastion Tripura to vote Thursday (Curtainraiser)

Agartala, Feb 12 (IANS) The Congress is determined to oust India's only Left regime in Tripura in elections Thursday, but the Marxists are equally confident of retaining power -- for the seventh time.

Agartala, Feb 12 (IANS) The Congress is determined to oust India's only Left regime in Tripura in elections Thursday, but the Marxists are equally confident of retaining power -- for the seventh time.

With the Tripura assembly having 60 seats, the CPI-M, heading the Left Front, has fielded 55 candidates. Its allies, the CPI and RSP, have put up two candidates each while the Forward Bloc has one candidate.

Keeping 48 seats to itself, the Congress has given 11 seats to its long-time ally, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), and one to the National Conference of Tripura. Both are tribal based parties.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has never won a seat in Tripura, has put up 50 candidates.

In 2008, the Left registered a thumping victory. The CPI-M alone won 46 seats and partners CPI and RSP secured one and two seats respectively. The Congress bagged 10 seats and INPT one.

The Congress is pleased that the Trinamool Congress, which fielded 22 candidates in 2008, has decided not to contest this time to prevent anti-Left votes from getting splintered.

Since 1993, the Left has secured 49-51 percent of votes in elections while the Congress-led alliance has bagged 40-45 percent of votes.

State Congress president Sudip Roy Barman outlined the main electoral issues as "unemployment, rising crimes against women and bad governance by the Left".

Manik Sarkar, the Marxist chief minister since 1998, says the Congress has a lot to answer for as it presided over the national government.

Sarkar, widely considered a rare honest man in politics, blamed the Congress-led UPA government for rising food prices and accused it of being biased against Tripura.

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